The Weather Prophet

Long-term weather forecasting is extremely important in the rural industry.

Having a road map of what the future holds can save millions of dollars in preventing losses. Australia’s most famous long-term weather forecaster was Inigo Jones (1872- 1954). He lived in Crohamhurst, Queensland- a hinterland town of the Sunshine Coast. Many old farmers have heard or used Inigo Jones’ methods.

In 1874, his parents migrated to Queensland where his father designed roads and railways. At the age of 11, Inigo obtained a scholarship to the Brisbane Grammar School. Interested in astronomy and meteorology, he had an observatory at his parents’ Kangaroo Point home and was a student member of the Royal Society of Queensland.

In 1888, the colonial meteorologist Clement Wragge persuaded Jones to serve a cadetship in his office rather than attend the University of Sydney. When Wragge became interested in Edouard Bruckner’s investigation of the changing levels of the Caspian Sea, comparing Bruckner’s 35-year rainfall cycle with the 11-year sunspot cycle, Jones began to develop a special interest in long-range forecasting on the basis of sunspots.

He believed that the four major planets of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune cause the high and low sunspot cycles in Queensland. According to him, when all the major cycles come together at the Eighteenth Hour of Right Ascension as a critical point, it causes droughts. Moreover, at the Sixth Hour of Right Ascension, it causes floods. Jupiter orbit is 11.86 years, Saturn is 30 years, Uranus is 84 years and Neptune is 164 years.

Inigo used these cycles and the Bruckner cycle of 35-36 years to predict the 1974 floods, which was 20 years after his death. He also predicted the great drought of 1983 to 1993, which was 30 years after his death. Low sunspot cycles cause droughts and bad business conditions. The low sunspots of 2008/09 was caused by Jupiter at the critical drought point. It will re-occur at this point in 2020. Saturn will be at the point in 2019. Below is the projected sunspot cycle to 2020. One planet Inigo didn’t use was Pluto, which is at its drought point in June 2017. This planet take 246 years go around the sun, so it is going to be there for a while. The biggest problem I see is, the last peak in sunspots was the lowest in 100 years, which means the drought should be a lot worse due to not enough rain in cycle 24.

In the bigger picture, high sunspots give you a warmer climate and more rain. This runs from peak to peak of 1823 years. We are now going into a lower sunspot cycle and colder climate. In 1645 to 1715, we had a mini ice age due to low or no sunspots. The Thames was frozen over at that time. The whole cycle system takes 25,920 years to complete, why measure climate change over 20 years?

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